John Hurt gives one-man acting primer in Beckett play

John Hurt in the Gate Theatre Dublin production of &#8220;Krapp's Last Tape&#8221; at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre, which opened Oct. 10 and continues through Nov. 4.RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING

Even as a young man, John Hurt had a face made for acting: expressive, malleable, with haunted eyes and a multitude of creases that could amplify any emotion. The graphic scene in Ridley's Scott's classic sci-fi film "Alien" showing the creature's explosive birth wouldn't have been nearly as spellbinding without the look of pure horror on Hurt's face (he played the scientist who was the monster's unwitting incubator).

The veteran British performer, 72, is now the perfect age to play theater's memorable old men: King Lear, Willy Loman, James Tyrone. And Samuel Beckett's cranky, taciturn writer, Krapp.

In a performance of "Krapp's Last Tape" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, Hurt gives a primer on the "less is more" approach to acting.

The role is supremely challenging. Silently suffering Krapp, the play's sole character, does little more for 55 minutes than listen obsessively to ancient audio tapes of himself on the lonely occasion of his 69th birthday. That's time enough to create a world of emotions and memories, and it's a story full of pain, even for Beckett, a master of theatrical cruelty.

Krapp is one of the Irish playwright's saddest characters: a solitary and self-absorbed writer of little renown with an annual ritual of recording the events of the previous year in a rambling monologue.

The old man's regret over a wasted life lacks the frequent moments of slapstick and wry humor that pepper the clowns' behavior in Beckett's masterpiece, "Waiting for Godot." Krapp's barren study, dominated by a battered desk and defined by a square of light surrounded by inky blackness, is a place where excuses and delusions have no place to live.

For the first three minutes or more after the lights go up, Krapp sits behind that desk, arms spread, facing us, seemingly catatonic. It's a long enough time to make some theater-goers uncomfortable; Hurt barely moves a muscle. (It's also enough time for you to marvel at the resemblance between the actor and Beckett as an older man.)

Hurt has been playing this part for quite a while. He and director Michael Colgan first worked on it for a production at Dublin's Gate Theatre, and that version played to great acclaim last year in Washington and New York before coming west. They're confident enough in their approach to take a few liberties with Beckett's stage directions. A cast-off banana peel, which the playwright instructs Krapp to slip on, is comically avoided by Hurt. Some other early stage business has been eliminated, making the aging writer's existence seem even more minimal.

For some reason, Krapp is intent on listening to a specific recorded moment from 30 years before, when as a more ambitious and pompous man nearing middle age he reflects more confidently on what has been and what is to come.

We and Krapp hear his 39-year-old self dismiss the end of perhaps his only promising romantic relationship with cold matter-of-factness. He and his love float languidly in a boat on the day of their breakup. "I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes." Those are perhaps the most heartbreaking lines of the play. The younger man on the tape delivers them with little emotion; the older man stares into the distance, clearly tortured by the thought of what might have been.

Krapp is also bereft of the ambition that drove him as a middle-aged man to declare that literary success was more important than romantic fulfillment anyway. At 69, he is spent. The younger Krapp rhapsodizes about "the fire in me." His older self is "burning to be gone."

Everything about Hurt's performance is calculated to the tiniest increment, down to eye movements, cane twirling and throat-clearing. Yet his performance is utterly without affect. Everything seems spontaneous; the character is fully and convincingly inhabited, and even Krapp's oddest quirks – his fascination with the word "spool," for instance – are given unexpected meaning by Hurt.

James McConnell's lighting design smartly defines Krapp's small, harsh world surrounded by nothingness. It's the perfect metaphor for his insignificant and fleeting life. It's not a pleasant place, but in the capable hands of Hurt and his fellow artists, it's an unforgettable one. Theater lovers should do everything in their power to get there.

John Hurt in the Gate Theatre Dublin production of “Krapp's Last Tape” at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre, which opened Oct. 10 and continues through Nov. 4. RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING
A scene from "Krapp's Last Tape" with John Hurt. Even as a young man, John Hurt had a face made for acting: expressive, malleable, with haunted eyes and a multitude of creases that could amplify any emotion. RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING
John Hurt in the Gate Theatre Dublin production of “Krapp's Last Tape” at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre. The graphic scene in Ridley's Scott's classic sci-fi film “Alien” showing the creature's explosive birth wouldn't have been nearly as spellbinding without the look of pure horror on Hurt's face (he played the scientist who was the monster's unwitting incubator). RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING
John Hurt in "Krapp's Last Tape." The veteran British performer is now the perfect age to play theater's memorable old men: King Lear, Willy Loman, James Tyrone. And Samuel Beckett's cranky, taciturn old writer, Krapp. RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING
The role is supremely challenging. Silently suffering Krapp, the play's sole character, does little more for 55 minutes than listen obsessively to ancient audio tapes of himself on the lonely occasion of his 69th birthday. RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING
Krapp is one of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett's saddest characters: a solitary and self-absorbed writer of little renown with an annual ritual of recording the events of the previous year in a rambling monologue. RYAN MILLER, CAPTURE IMAGING

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